Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Indulging in a Whine

* American soldiers killed in Iraq - 4072, includes 39 in March, 52 in April and 7 so far in May

I had to take a breather from this blog because the most fun I get from it is blowing off about politics. Politics has been my life's blood for as long as I can remember. My first published article was about politics; my main writing achievements have come in that area. But a few month's ago, I decided to take a sabbatical from politics. As I've written in other posts, that was mainly due to the presidential election and my anger at how the woman in the race has been treated from the beginning, by both the media and her own party. It was a disillusionment to see that while, race was, if anything, a benefit in running for office, sex was the same old impediment it has always been.

Once again, women were told in so many words that our place was, as always, back there in the back room stuffing envelopes and serving cookies, while we left the important stuff, like actually running for president to the men. Even when we'd worked our butts off all our lives and were scary smart and knew our stuff backwards and forwards and even when that man was young and inexperienced. I mean, he was male so naturally that gave him an automatic head start. Sad to say, even many women feel this way.

If a word that could be remotely construed as racist (or even if it couldn't) was leveled at Barack, the media and the Democratic leadership came roaring to his defense but say anything you like about the female and everyone shrugged it off. The media (and the Democratic party) have been trying to convince Hillary to just give it up and let that nice young man have it for months now, just as we women have always been asked to make the sacrifices for the men. When she was put down, beat up, screwed over - her own party (including many of the women) just sat there and kept their mouths shut.

At that time, I was reading 3-4 newspapers every day, as well as God knows how many political blogs, and the e-mail from my political discussion group. Reading them, my mood swung from furious to depressed and that was about the extent of it - so I decided to bow out, keeping only the narrowest eye on what was going on with the election. I gave up the newspapers and the blogs for the duration.

I discovered that the party I considered mine, the Democrats, is filled with assholes and gutless wonders. We never knew until this particular election just how pathetically incompetent they are. The way we apportion delegates is nothing short of criminal. (If the Dems assigned delegates the way the Republicans do, Hillary would have won the race months ago). But, no, we do it proportionally and in such a twisted manner that you can almost get more delegates by losing than you can by winning. We like caucuses as well as primaries although primaries are straightforward - everyone votes, then count'em - while caucuses bear no relevance whatsoever democracy. We disenfranchise two of the largest states because they moved their primaries ahead of where the Democratic power structure thought they should be. So we piss and moan for years about Florida voters being disenfranchised in 2000, then we do it again - only to ourselves this time.

My own view is that the Democratic leadership (which may be an oxymoron) wants rid of the Clintons because they crave the power for themselves. That makes sense, huh? Let's pitch out the only Democrats who've ever actually proven they can win the White House and leave the party in the cowardly hands of the Pelosis and the Kerrys. Let's not take advantage of the Democrats who have a proven track record on the economy even when the country is tumbling into a recession. I read on the internet (so maybe it's not true) that Donna Brazile said the Dems don't need the working people anymore. The "new" Democratic party is the party of the young and the hip and the affluent. So, that pretty much leaves me out all the way around.

At this point, the Indiana and North Carolina elections are over. Obama won North Carolina easily and Hillary barely won Indiana. The calls for her to do the right thing and get out will be louder than ever and I expect she'll do it sooner rather than later.

I am so discouraged that I may not vote in the presidential election. I can hardly believe I'm saying those words but, there you go. Maybe I'll change my mind, especially if the polls are close in Indiana and it appears that Obama needs my vote, but I've felt so unwanted and unappreciated, my instinct is to say - "the hell with you, Democrats - don't be sending me any begging pleas for money or requests for assistance in elections - call on the people whose butt you kissed during the election". Maybe I won't stay feeling that way. Any Democrat has to be better than the last eight years. Just the statistics about deaths in Iraq prove that. In the meantime, I'm turning my attention to other things. Politics is off my radar screen for a while.